Medical Doctor Develops Surgery to Create the Perfect Checkout Cashier

We’ve all had the experience. You’re standing in line to check out at a store. You have a box of pasta, say, in your hand. You’re late to pick up the kids, but you need the pasta for dinner, so you can’t bail. Your frustration mounts. You feel helpless. “Being in a line like that […]

Correctives

Make Use of All the Data the Government Collects about You: Fiction Writers for Better Misinformation Proposal #4456

Many people see the government doing something they don’t like and their only thought is, stop! Just stop! They hear the National Security Agency is monitoring communications through major social networks and other sites, and they think, stop! Don’t let the government do that! They learn that the government is spending more than it takes […]

A Life Examined

LeBron James Apologizes for Not Doing Something, Whatever It Is, that You Think He Should, before Not Doing It

I want to apologize in advance to all the basketball fans out there who have spent years deepening their knowledge of the game through dedicated television viewing and keen observation of on-screen graphics for failing to do whatever it is they will think I should have done at a crucial moment. I know that my failure to make a drive to the hoop or pass the rock at just the moment you will think I should will make you, for just a moment, doubt your own understanding of basketball. This may lead you to, perhaps only dimly, question why the greatest passions in your life are born from watching others actually living lives.

A Life Examined

A Fender Bender

I feel I must present this story to you in a series of small, logical steps, or else the ending may be incomprehensible. This is so often the only way to understand the phenomena in the jungle of human behavior. 1- Ralph is introduced to Katy, the new associate in human resources. Katy is 5′ […]

A Life Examined

Whenever I hold to a resolution

I have to ask myself, did I wrestle with a demon and win, or did I wrestle with an angel and lose?

A Life Examined

I am scrupulous

in following walk lights, crosswalks, and other traffic laws, so that, if I’m ever run over and killed, I will have full and just right to complain.

A Life Examined

People are offended by universal truths pithily expressed.

If you doubt this, try adding “if you like that kind of thing” to any compliment and observe the effect. For example, “That is a pleasing blouse, if you like that kind of thing.” Or, “I thought your new story was lovely, if you like that kind of thing.”
It’s obviously true that only people whose taste inclines them to like a kind of thing will like an example of that thing. And yet try slipping awareness of that fact into conversation and you will soon find yourself an outcast.

A Life Examined

I’m just grateful these days

to have socks that stay up.

A Life Examined

I’ve turned incoherence into an art.

A Life Examined

Parents Use Big Data to Engage More Meaningfully with Children

Arthur Igwana loves his kids, but he says his many work commitments make it difficult to spend as much time with them as he would like. So last Christmas, his wife’s gift to him was a yearlong contract with Perennial Systems Integration, a data mining company that services businesses such as Microsoft, General Motors, and Walmart to enhance their customer interactions.

Correctives

Put Skin in the Game for Better Scandals: Fiction Writers for Better Misinformation Proposal #433

In our opinion, the whole apparatus of of scandal-seeking is beneficial when there is genuine miscreancy and harmful when it’s all a confection of palaver and false umbrage. The key is to separate true scandals from false.

The Cynic's Notebook

Manichaeism is alive and well in the world today.

When you hit a red light, you believe in the malevolent will behind creation. When a light turns green, as if just for you, then you believe in the good god. Our altars are those obelisk-shaped traffic signals.